Traces

Jenna Rutanen (1987) is showing her series Traces which is a mixture of painting and photography. Through the series Rutanen is contemplating the passage of life and traces that we want to leave behind.

Finnish-born photographer Jenna Rutanen (Vesanto, 1987) graduated with a bachelor’s degree in photographic arts from the University of Westminster, London in 2012. In the same year, she relocated to the Netherlands and continued her studies in Leiden University graduating with a master’s degree in Film and Photography in 2015. Moving between different countries and feeling the sense of otherness has largely impacted her photographic work in which she observes and analyses the world and photographic medium. Most recently she has focused on the theme of holiday photos which means taking photos on film in different parts of the world and later purposely destroying and distressing the film negatives. Distressing is normally done with food, acids and liquids that are somehow representing the country in which the photos have been taken thus Rutanen wants to push the photographic boundaries and question photography as a vehicle of depiction. Rutanen was selected as one of the New Dutch Photography Talents in the Netherlands in 2019 for her project Coca-cola and Sunshine (2017) and she was also featured in Fresh Eyes publication (2019) which presented the 100 greatest emerging photographers.

Website: www.jennarutanen.com